


The Death of Glitter (Again)

by PyrrhaIphis



Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Rock Concert, Short, The infamous foul mouth of Curt Wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2018-12-31 11:46:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12131805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PyrrhaIphis/pseuds/PyrrhaIphis
Summary: Just a few months after the tenth anniversary of the hoax in which Brian Slade appeared to be shot on stage, articles appear in newspapers across the world announcing that Brian has died of natural causes.  Arthur Stuart isn't sure what to think of the story, until the morning news shows feature interviews reminiscing on the late singer's career, and one of those interviewed is Tommy Stone...(Yes, the "M" rating is just for language, btw.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always, if you see any inappropriate Americanisms in the speech or POV of an English character, please let me know so I can fix it! Thanks!

            “Please, Mandy.  I can’t do it without you!”

            The words would have touched her a lot more deeply if they were coming from the true face of her ex-husband, instead of his ugly new one.  The fact that he had resumed the use of his real voice only added insult to injury.  But there was something in his pleading look that was the same as it had always been, and it made simply turning him away all but impossible.

            “ _Why_ do you think you need to do this?” she asked, trying to keep calm.

            “Someone’s on to me,” Brian—no, _Tommy_ —explained, his voice trembling along the line between fear and rage.  “Shouted it out for the whole press corps to hear.”

            “Shouted _what_ out, exactly?”

            “Something about a rumor of a connection between me and…me.”

            Mandy couldn’t repress a snort of derisive laughter at that.  Didn’t even try to, in fact.  “Don’t you have government strong-arms making sure things like that aren’t published?”  God knows they were watching _her_ every move. Surely they were also watching the press.

            He shrugged weakly.  “They can’t control everyone.”

            Mandy sighed.  That was probably why they were trying to control the sources of information, rather than the people looking for it.  “Who was this person?” she asked.  “One of the reporters?”

            “I don’t know.  Probably not; he wasn’t local.”

            “Not local?” Mandy repeated, a little confused.

            “From his accent, he was from somewhere up north.  Sheffield or Manchester, I’d say.”

            Mandy laughed.  “Oh, him!  He _is_ a reporter.  Good-looking young man.  Just your type,” she added, with a smirk.

            “I don’t do that anymore,” Tommy said coldly.  “You _know_ why.”

            She shrugged.  “Your loss.  Of course, he’s probably not available anyway.  He asked for Curt’s number as he was leaving.  I wonder how long the interview went on before Curt had him on all fours, begging for it…”

            “That didn’t happen!” Tommy bellowed, his face turning purple.

            “Why _there_ you are, Brian!” Mandy exclaimed around peals of laughter.  For all his claims of being over them, his jealous fits every time she or Curt tried to see anyone new proved otherwise.

            “Are you going to help me or not?” Tommy demanded, his expression suddenly as stony as his voice.

            “What does Shannon think you should be doing about this fellow?”

            Tommy shook his head.  “She wants to let the committee deal with him.  But they’ll wait until he makes his accusations public, and then it’ll be too late!”

            Mandy sighed.  There was no talking him out of this nonsense, was there?  If he was that determined, better to take charge and make sure he didn’t do anything as stupid as last time.  “What were you planning on saying?”

            “I thought probably AIDS.”

            Mandy slapped him just as hard as she could.  “I would _like_ to have a love life, you selfish asshole!” she shouted.  “How many people would want to sleep with me if they thought I might have AIDS?”

            “But…they’d think it was Curt…”

            She slapped him again, though not as hard.  “And you think it’s fair to cut off _his_ love life over _your_ stupidity?”

            “Mandy, be reasonable.  What are the chances he _doesn’t_ have it?”

            With a deep sigh, Mandy had to nod slightly.  “All right, I’ll give you that.  But ten years ago?  It doesn’t seem very likely.  If he’s infected, it happened after you two broke up.”

            Tommy shrugged.  “What would _you_ suggest, then?”

            “Something a bit more everyday.  No one ever suspects the commonplace.”  A lesson Brian should have learned years ago…

 

*******

 

 **Birmingham, England** – At three in the morning, local time, the world lost a great artist.  Brian Slade, icon of the early ‘70s glam movement, died in his parents’ home due to a catastrophic kidney failure.  Slade had been ill for several years, having lost one kidney in an automobile accident, with the other one failing as a result of years of alcohol and substance abuse.  Late last year, he received a new kidney, generously donated by fellow singer Tommy Stone, but his body violently rejected the transplanted organ after several months, and Slade’s health spiraled downwards rapidly.  For the last weeks of his life, he was barely more than a vegetable.  Due to his emaciated condition at the end, his family has opted for a closed-casket funeral, prior to cremation.

            Mourners began to gather around the Slade family home as soon as the morning papers went out, and plans are already underway for a memorial concert featuring the musicians with whom Slade worked back in the ‘70s, as well as other surviving members of the glam rock movement.

 

*******

 

            Arthur wasn’t entirely sure how to take the article on first reading.  The mention of Tommy Stone made it seem automatically suspect, naturally, but…what if it was true, and that mention had been made as a precursor to explaining Tommy’s disappearance?  He didn’t even know how to go about seeking an answer.  If it was true, then speaking to Mandy Slade about it would be beyond heartless.

            In the end, he didn’t have to call anyone.  The morning news programmes answered all his questions.  They featured a report on Brian’s ‘authentic demise,’ which they decided to enhance with brief statements from other singers, getting their reactions to the news.

            And the first one they talked to was Tommy Stone.  “It’s a great tragedy,” he claimed, doing his best to look sad over his own alleged death.  “Brian Slade had a great influence on the early years of my career.”

            Arthur had to laugh at that.  Were people actually believing this rubbish?

            But what about that concert?  If they were trying to reunite every artist Brian had worked with…if Curt was going to be there…

            When he got to work, Arthur went straight into Lou’s office, and pointed out the passage in the Reuters story about Brian’s ‘death’ that talked about the memorial concert.  “Let me cover it.”

            Lou looked at him sceptically.  “Why?  Surely you’re not still bitter about having the earlier Slade story cancelled.  That was months ago!”

            Arthur shook his head.  “I’ve got friends back in London.  Friends in a band.  They took part in the Death of Glitter concert ten years ago.  They’ll be tapped for this new concert, I guarantee it.  I could provide an inside story like no other.”

            Lou still didn’t seem sold.

            “Call it vacation time?” Arthur suggested.  He only had a few days of vacation—and no funds for a plane ticket back home—but he couldn’t give up on this now.

            “Let me think about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding Mandy's dialog in the first scene, it's important to remember that a test for HIV/AIDS wasn't developed until 1985, so at this time, there really was no way of knowing for sure who was infected.


	2. Chapter 2

            Though he’d only spoken to Ray on the phone, all four of the Flaming Creatures were waiting for Arthur at the airport when he arrived.  Despite the crowded terminal and the myriad staring eyes, they all insisted on hugging him.  More than one cheek that jostled against his own was moist.

            “Tell me you’re cryin’ because you’re so happy to see me,” Arthur begged them.

            From the uncomfortable looks on their faces, that wasn’t it.

            It took every ounce of Arthur’s strength not to tell them the truth right there in the airport.  Maintaining his silence remained a challenge for most of the drive, but the entire issue of Brian/Tommy was briefly driven from his mind when the car turned into the private park around the manor house the taxi was rapidly approaching.

            “What are we doin’ here?” Arthur asked.  “Are you rentin’ rooms in their old servants’ quarters?”

            Pearl smiled uncomfortably, and the others laughed.  Billy leaned in close to him and used one hand to turn the back of his already unruly hair into an utter disaster.  “You want to tell him?” Billy asked.  “Or shall I do it, Lord Percival?”

            “Lord…?” Arthur repeated, aghast.  Something _had_ to be a joke here…

            “It’s nothing to be concerned about,” Pearl assured him, with a trembling laugh.  “Just a little misunderstanding.  It’ll be cleared up soon.”

            “Aw, I was looking forward to knowing a member of the House of Lords!” Ray chuckled.

            “Wait, what’s goin’ on?”  Pearl had always seemed the least normal of the lot of them!  How could _he_ be from…no, perhaps it made sense that a peer’s family would be rather off…

            “It’s just that there was a little scandal, and my brother had to flee the country suddenly,” Pearl explained.  “My other brother died years back, and the title’s not supposed to descend by the female line, so until it gets sorted, I may have to become a tiny bit of an earl.  But it’s nothing serious!”

            “Er…no, that sounds very serious.”  Arthur shook his head, trying to order his thoughts.  Also trying to drive out his idle curiosity regarding what his family would think if they found out he had shared his bed with a future earl.  “Don’t you think you _should_ try to keep the position?  If you were in the House of Lords, you could vote against Thatcher’s conservative policies.”

            “I’d also have to stay awake long enough to vote.  Besides, if I accept the title, people might expect me to get married and have children to pass on the line!” Pearl exclaimed, sounding horrified.  Right, he’d also been the least bisexual of the lot of them.  Not that any of them had ever showed much interest in women when Arthur was around.

            “It’s not as though you have to make up your mind right away,” Malcolm said, though that didn’t fit what little Arthur knew about the way inheriting a title worked.  “Besides, your brother might come back.”

            Pearl’s grim expression didn’t seem to imply any chance of that ever happening.  And yet, despite his protestations of reluctance to become a peer of the realm, and his insistence that he hated the very idea of accepting his family’s estate, he was certainly quite delighted to take Arthur on a full tour of the manner, and he certainly _seemed_ proud of all the fineries he was showing off.  The contents of any single room would have paid Arthur’s rent in New York for a decade.

            The tour finished up in a ballroom, which had been converted into a mini concert stage, with all the band’s equipment set up.  Finding the whole thing rather hard to process, Arthur decided to shift the topic to something he _was_ capable of talking about.  “I take it you’ll still be performin’ in the ‘memorial’ concert, despite the new title?”

            “Of course!” Pearl insisted.

            “So sad to think he’s really gone,” Ray sighed, shaking his head.

            Arthur scowled, pursing his lips.  “He’s not really—well, no he _is_ really gone, but he’s not dead.”

            “What?” Malcolm looked into his eyes almost accusingly.  “What makes you so sure?”

            Arthur chuckled.  “I saw him on the telly, talkin’ about his own death.”

            “You saw an old clip from something, then,” Billy concluded.

            “No, no, it was new footage.  The people broadcastin’ it just didn’t know he was Brian Slade.”

            “Who _did_ they think he was?” Ray asked.

            “Tommy Stone.”

            Of course, none of them wanted to believe that—and Arthur could hardly blame them!—so he had to fully explain the process by which he had discovered the truth.  They still didn’t seem to believe it, but they didn’t try to argue, either.

            “Who else is lined up for the concert?” Arthur asked, to change the subject.  Again.

            “It’s all still under negotiation,” Malcolm said, an alarming state of affairs, considering the concert was now less than a week away.  “Polly Small has agreed to appear, but it seems like she might be the only one of any note other than us.  No one even knows how to contact Jack Fairy, and…”  He paused, his eyes trained heavily on Arthur.  “Curt Wild hasn’t made up his mind yet.”

            Arthur bit his lip.  This whole trip was a waste of time if Curt didn’t come to the concert…

 

*******

 

            Curt didn’t want to be here.  He wanted to be literally anywhere else in the world.  But he hadn’t been given much choice.  Mandy had stabbed him in the back, the bitch!  After he’d told her he wasn’t going to do it, what had she done but run right to Tommy Stone and told him so?  Then he had the gall to come by in person and tell Curt that if he didn’t take part, then _he would_.  Imagine the balls required to take part in your own memorial concert!

            So Curt was back in London for the first time in ten years.

            And some cute motherfucker had decided it would be fun to call _this_ concert the Death of Glitter, too.  The only reason _that_ concert was now a pleasant memory was because of what had happened afterwards, but there obviously wouldn’t be a repeat performance of _that_ , since he was now in New York, where Curt should be.

            Maybe it wasn’t too late.  He could just go to the airport and hop on the first plane back to America.  If Tommy wanted to insult the audience—and everyone else—by performing in his own memorial concert, let him!

            If Curt was going to escape, he’d have to be quick about it.  Rehearsals were supposed to start in just a few hours, so his window was tiny.  He’d leave his luggage behind, have someone ship it to him later.  Easier to make a fast getaway without being burdened down…

            As usual, his timing was off.

            When he opened the door, Mandy was standing on the other side, in a bright green dress, wearing more make-up than she’d worn a decade, and with her hair expensively coiffed.  She smiled at him curiously.  “Are you developing ESP?” she asked.  “How’d you know I was here?”

            “I was just on my way out,” Curt grumbled, backing away.  Mandy in a good mood was always alarming, somehow.

            “Oh, but you’re not due at the venue for two hours,” Mandy said, following him back into the room.

            Shit.  She’d come to fucking babysit him and make sure he wasn’t going to run away, hadn’t she?  When did she decide to become Tommy’s stooge?  “What are you doing here?” Curt asked, hoping she wouldn’t have come up with a good excuse, and would have no choice but to leave again.

            “Have you figured out what you’re going to tell the press?” Mandy asked.

            “About what?”

            “When they ask you why you didn’t come to Brian’s funeral.”

            “How about ‘cause he’s not fucking dead?” Curt snarled.  This whole thing was asinine.

            “Curt, don’t you ever _think_ before you act?”

            “What the fuck are you talking about?”

            “As long as the world believes he’s dead, we’ll be _free_ ,” Mandy insisted, her voice pleading.  “They won’t care who we talk to, because they’ll think ‘Tommy’ is safe from anything we could ever say.  Don’t you want to be able to talk to people without feeling eyes on the back of your head?”

            Curt scoffed.  “They do a lot worse than just watching _me_ ,” he said, shaking his head.  “And this won’t make them back off.  They’ll still be worried we’re going to blow the whistle on them.”

            “Not if we make a big show of grief.  Once we’d be implicating ourselves as well as them, they’ll go away.”

            Could it really be that easy?  “That’s why you’re playing along with all this shit?”

            Mandy nodded.  “That and to keep him from doing anything stupid this time.  You know he wanted to claim it was AIDS?”

            “Shit.  Lemme guess, he wanted to say _I_ gave it to him.”

            Mandy’s weak smile answered Curt’s question better than any words ever could.  “Now you _are_ going to behave yourself, right?”

            “Do I have a choice?”  Given how tight Reynolds and Thatcher were, being in England wasn’t much safer than being in America.  Not when it was those guys you were worried about meeting in a dark alley.

            Mandy patted him on the head like a child.  “Good boy,” she said.

            Curt slapped her hand away.  “What am I, a dog?!”

            “I thought you were a wolf.”

            “Yeah, you’re hilarious.”

            From the way she was laughing, Mandy certainly thought so.

            Doing his best to ignore her, Curt went back over to the sofa, where he sat down and turned on the television.  Maybe—for once!—there’d be something good on.  He still had two hours to kill before the rehearsal was going to start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure why or when I decided that Pearl's real name was Percival, but the decision seems firmly lodged in my brain...


	3. Chapter 3

            Curt had never been less in the mood for a performance than he was today, and the rehearsals over the past few days had done nothing to make him interested in performing.  In fact, they had been the most botched-up, half-assed rehearsals he’d ever taken part in.  The only other performers who had actually shown up for them were the Flaming Creatures, and they had seemed a lot more interested in staring at Curt and whispering to each other than in performing.  Curt didn’t even want to know what that was all about.

            So he should at least have seen the day of the performance as a bit of a reunion, but he couldn’t muster the interest.  Who was there to be reunited _with_ , anyway?

            The act of entering the backstage before the show—to think he had sunk so low that he had actually arrived when he was supposed to, instead of half an hour late!—was as much a forced act of rote as turning up at school had been before he dropped out.

            As soon as he stepped through the door, Curt entered chaos.  But he was used to that.

            “Oh, Curt!”  A woman’s voice called his name, and he turned in the direction of the speaker instinctively.  “Last I heard, no one was sure if you were going to take part in the show.”  She smiled as she approached him, shaking her head.  “I’m glad you are.  You look good.”

            “Thanks, Polly.  You do, too.”  Aside from the fact that she had dyed her hair a black so jet that it screamed artificiality, anyway.

            Polly smiled uncomfortably, and touched her shoulder-length hair, her hand as reticent and nervous as if she thought the hair was going to bite it.  “You don’t think I overdid it?”

            “It makes a statement.”  That statement was ‘I saw my first gray hair and panicked,’ but it was still a statement.

            She laughed, but the look on her face was melancholic.  “Shame we’re all getting together for such a terrible reason.  We should have had one of these reunion concerts before it was too late…”

            Fucking hell, what was he supposed to say to that?  If he told anyone the truth, those fucking douchebags would probably kill him.  Especially if he was telling an American like Polly.  A British artist they might not see as so much of a threat, since they’d keep the secret safely out of the US.  “Yeah…” Curt eventually said, to fill the awkward silence.

            “I was surprised you didn’t come to the funeral.”

            “Why?  If you’d been in my place, would _you_ have shown up to the funeral?”

            Polly paused, biting her lip.  “Maybe not,” she admitted.  “To be honest, I’ve never been in a relationship as intense as what you had with Brian.”  Didn’t she have at least three ex-husbands?  The idea that she’d married men that she wasn’t even intense with seemed downright disgusting to Curt.  Was that considered normal, to be so blasé about the person you were marrying?   “Did you hear the rumor?”

            “What rumor?”

            “They’re saying Tommy Stone wanted to deliver Brian’s eulogy.”

            “That conceited, egotistical motherfucker!”  Didn’t he get enough of a narcissistic high from _attending_ his own goddamned funeral?  Did he really feel the need to make a speech in his own praise, too?

            “It’s just a rumor,” Polly said, setting a hand on his arm, as if that would somehow help.  “It might not be true.”

            “It’s _exactly_ the kind of thing he’d do.  He thinks the whole fucking world exists just to stroke him, and when you don’t want to play along…God, does he make you suffer for it!”

            “I didn’t know you even _knew_ Tommy Stone,” Polly commented.

            Curt laughed.  “Yeah, I know him _really_ well.”  He’d spent almost two years fucking him…back when he was Brian and beautiful…

            Polly’s eyes widened.  “Oh.  I…I didn’t know he was bisexual, too…”

            “Yeah, he is.  But he was better looking then.  And not such an asshole.”

            “Glad to hear it,” Polly chuckled.  “But when were you—”

            A stagehand ran up, interrupting Polly’s question.  “Ms. Small, you’re needed in the office,” he told her.

            “I gotta go,” she sighed.  “Maybe we can catch up some more after the show.”

            “Yeah.”  Why not?  Not like he was going to have anything better to do.  Not like he was going to have any _one_ better to do.

            Miserably, Curt moved deeper into the backstage area, looking for an out of the way place he could sit down and wait for it to be his turn to perform.  Whatever asshole had decided to recycle the name ‘Death of Glitter’ for this concert hadn’t stopped there:  it was being held on the exact ten year anniversary of the original, and in the same venue.  But the similarities stopped there.

            Ten years ago, Curt’s heart had still been chained to a broken romance, and he had spent his time on stage hoping to see Brian in the audience, or to find him waiting backstage.  What he had found there instead…unexpected, beautiful, unassuming…pure pleasure in human form.  Until this past February, Curt had written the whole encounter off as something out of a dream.  An encounter with an alien, or a demon, or a fairy…something inhuman, outside of time and space, an encounter that could never be repeated.  When they’d met again in New York, it had taken most of their solitary conversation for Curt to recognize him.  Just as unexpected, not quite as beautiful, and it had been a short conversation, so Curt wasn’t sure if he was still as unassuming, and he couldn’t even guess if he was still the embodiment of pleasure.  It hadn’t been safe to find out; those goons weren’t going to take it kindly if Curt decided to fuck a reporter.  But maybe now that Brian had faked his own death—again!—maybe now it would be safe.  Maybe now they wouldn’t care who Curt fucked.

            When he got back to New York, he’d have to go looking for the kid.  What had he said the name of his paper was?

            “About time!”

            No, no, it wasn’t the _Times._   Curt was sure of that much.

            “Hey, Curt!  You still on this planet?”

            _The Daily Planet_ was fictional, wasn’t it?  It was where Superman worked, or something.

            Hands grabbed Curt’s shoulders and shook him.  Curt shoved the hands off, only to notice afterwards that they belonged to Trevor.  “Huh?  When did you get here?” Curt asked.

            “I’ve only been standing here trying to talk to you for the last five minutes!”

            Curt coughed, and tried to smile.  “Sorry.  I guess my mind wandered.”

            Trevor let out a deep sigh.  “Jesus, I thought you’d be the one person here who _wouldn’t_ be acting like their god just died.  I mean, you know…”  He stopped, and looked around them.  No one seemed to be listening.  “You know the score,” Trevor finished, barely above a whisper.

            “Yeah, so?  You think I like listening to them talk about Brian all day?”

            “No, guess not.”  Trevor shrugged, with a small smile.  “Sorry.  But this should be a good way to fight back, right?”

            “How do you figure that?”  There’s no way Trevor knew where Curt had disappeared to after the concert was over ten years ago, was there?  And even if he did, _Brian_ certainly didn’t know…

            “Well, the original was more than a little sarcastic.  Pointed out how stupid Brian had been to fake his own death, didn’t it?”

            “I guess so,” Curt agreed, sighing.  “Wait, do you mean _you’re_ the one who set this fucking thing up?”

            “Yeah.  I thought it’d be good for a quiet laugh.  Besides…almost makes it feel like Jack’s here…”

            Curt frowned.  “You don’t mean that Jack’s…gone…?”  It was hard to imagine someone as ethereal—as extra-human—as Jack being _mortal_.

            Trevor shrugged.  “Haven’t a clue,” he admitted.  “Couldn’t track him down, not one single lead.”

            Curt laughed.  “I think I know someone who could find him,” he chuckled.  If he’d been able to figure out Brian had become Tommy Stone despite armed thugs working their asses off to hide all traces of that fact, how hard could it be for him to find Jack Fairy, who would never have stooped to covering his tracks?

            “Oh?  Who?”

            “Just…an old flame.”

            “How mysterious,” Trevor chuckled.  “He here tonight?”

            “I wish.”

            Trevor laughed, but didn’t seem to have anything else to say, soon falling into an awkward silence.

            Curt looked around.  There really wasn’t anyone anywhere near them.  “Hey,” he said quietly, “how come none of you ever came forward?  About Brian…”

            “What could we have said?”  Trevor shook his head.  “No one would have believed us.  And you know certain parties would have tracked us down and eviscerated us.”

            Those guys were operating on this side of the Atlantic, too?  Then they didn’t work for Reynolds?  “By ‘certain parties,’ do you mean…” Curt started, but his voice petered out quickly.  He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

            “You know who I mean.  A certain diminutive little bird…”

            Oh, he just meant Shannon.  “Gotcha.”  Curt let out a deep breath.  “She’s the least of the people protecting him.  The others…they play _rough_.”

            “So that’s why you and Mandy never said anything…”

            Curt nodded.  “She thinks they’ll lighten up now…”

            “But you don’t?”

            “I’m not counting on shit.  Not until I see it with my own eyes.”

            Trevor laughed.  “Probably a good idea,” he agreed.

            They fell silent again for several minutes.  “Somehow, I didn’t expect to see you here tonight,” Curt commented, to break the silence.  “When you guys weren’t the band backing me up, I figured…”

            “Yeah, Reg and Harley aren’t coming,” Trevor explained.  “I’m not performing, either.  Just here in an administrative capacity.”

            Curt shook his head.  Since when did Trevor become the administrative type?  He was just as crazy as the rest of them ten years ago.  Did that mean _Curt_ was the one who was abnormal—that he should have grown more as a person than he had?  “Why not?” he asked, trying to distract himself.  “Did they say why they weren’t coming?”

            “Nothing specific.  Probably just disgusted by the whole load of tripe.”  Trevor sighed.  “But you know this was going to happen one way or the other.  I figured it was better to have a hand in directing it—make sure there was some mockery along with the flattery.” 

            “And get paid in the bargain,” Curt surmised.  The one thing that _didn’t_ suck about this gig was the paycheck.  Someone had sunk a lot of money into paying the artists.  The money was probably Tommy Stone’s.  He wanted his ego stroked so hard that he didn’t even mind paying ridiculous sums of money for it.

            “That never hurts,” Trevor agreed, with a laugh.  “It’s not much of a paycheck, but—”

            Trevor was interrupted by a roar from the direction of the stage.  The show was starting.

            “Audience sounds good,” Trevor said, raising an eyebrow.  “I wasn’t expecting that.”

            “Been a long time since I had a really good crowd,” Curt sighed.  When had that been?  ’78?  ’79?  Way too fucking long, whenever it was.

            “You better get psyched up to give them a good show, then,” Trevor said, with a grin, before heading away somewhere.

            There wasn’t much to get excited about, but Curt did what little he could.  Tried to remember what it had felt like back in the early ‘70s, to hear the crowd screaming in excitement as he took the stage.

            Best he could come up with was the delighted girls shrieking when he went onstage with Brian, all hoping they’d get to see the romantic magic that had rocketed Brian from stardom to super-stardom.

            That wasn’t helping.

            But he hadn’t been able to come up with anything better before it was his turn on stage.  Somewhat to his surprise, this audience clamored for him more loudly than any had since the mid-‘70s.  They were so excited that by the time he was ready to start his first song, he had already come to regret the fact that they were only going to play three.  This audience would eat it up, no matter how many they played, so why stop short?

            Curt had decided to build up steadily—at a longer show, he might start and end big, with variety in the middle—so the first number gave him a chance to check out the audience.  He wasn’t sure what he was looking for…

            …but he knew it when he saw him.

            What he recognized first was that steady, unblinking stare, red hot with desire despite the flat expression.  Only after seeing that did he register that it was the same sweet face—and the same ugly clothes he’d been wearing in New York, except for the green pin sparkling on his shirt.

            Throughout the first song, Curt kept glancing over at him, but Arthur never moved.  Standing there like a statue when everyone around him was dancing, screaming, waving their arms or swaying in time with the drummer’s beat.  Why the fuck wasn’t he reacting?

            Maybe he didn’t realize Curt had noticed him.

            Curt tried giving him a wink, but the only thing that happened was that three girls standing near Arthur starting shrieking and giggling.  But he didn’t react.  Not at all.

            Something more obvious, then.  More obvious and less prone to misinterpretation.  The last thing Curt wanted was some airheaded girl charging backstage and interrupting his plans to get laid.  There was a good opportunity late in the second song.  He didn’t want to have to take advantage of it, though, so he kept a close watch on Arthur in the audience, but nothing he did was causing any reaction whatsoever.

            So he changed the lyrics on the fly, replacing “take your chance” with “make a wish,” even though that completely fucked up the rhyme.  Curt thought he saw a tiny bit of a smile flicker at the corners of those delectable lips, but the lighting—and his angle—sucked, so he wasn’t sure.

            At the end of the second song, rather than launching straight into ‘Gimme Danger’ like they were supposed to, one of the members of Curt’s back-up band grabbed him by his arm.  “What is the matter with you?” the man hissed.  “You’re supposed to be singing to the whole audience, not one tiny part of it!”

            “Fuck off,” Curt replied, pushing him away and flipping him off for good measure.  The audience let out a delighted squeal at seeing his signature move.  Normally, that was a thrilling sound for him to hear.  Today it wasn’t doing it for him.

            As the song got going, Curt once again thought he saw a bit of a smile light up Arthur’s face, but it passed quickly, leaving behind only the same smoldering heat that had been there to begin with.

            By the time the song was over, Curt wasn’t sure if he was incredibly fucking horny, or pissed off beyond belief.  He did know that the screams of the crowd weren’t doing anything for him, so he left the stage much more quickly than usual.

            And yet despite his speed, by the time he got fully offstage, Arthur was already there waiting for him, just where he had been ten years ago.

            There was no need to think.  Curt walked over to him and pulled him into a deep, powerful kiss.  Arthur reacted with an astonishing ardor, wrapping his arms around Curt and winding his tongue around Curt’s.

            It was a fantastic kiss, but Curt wasn’t going to let himself be distracted.  He pushed Arthur away again.  “What the _fuck_ is the matter with you?!” he shouted.

            “What?  I…what…what did I do?”

            “You just fucking _stood_ there!” Curt bellowed back, pointing off at the area where the audience was still screaming.  “I thought you said you loved my music!”  If he’d been lying about that, had _anything_ he had said ten years ago been true?

            “I do!” Arthur insisted.  “I always have!”

            “Then what the fuck was that?!  I thought you used to live with a band.  Did you do the same thing to them, acting like you weren’t even in the room with them when they were playing?”

            Arthur chuckled weakly.  “That was a long time ago.  I can’t…I can’t go crazy like I used to.  I’m not a teenager anymore.”

            Curt scowled.  “Can’t go crazy anymore, huh?”  He scoffed.  “We’ll see about that!”

            Without waiting for a reply, he grabbed Arthur by the wrist and began to pull him towards the door.

            “Wh-where are we goin’?” Arthur asked.

            “The roof.”

            By the time Curt could look back at Arthur, a huge grin had plastered itself across his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This short is the last of the fics I wrote before I got ahold of the published screenplay and found out that the Death of Glitter concert was supposed to be taking place in winter and in 1975, thus presumably on the one year anniversary of the shooting stunt. I had previously thought it was the summer (because otherwise wouldn't they be much too cold if they're getting it on up on the roof?) of '74 and had treated it as an intended tribute concert being turned into a mockery of a tribute concert when the news went public that Brian was still alive. (FYI, while it's the last of the ones I wrote, I still haven't posted all of the earlier ones. It's easier to edit up a short one like this than it is one over 45k.)
> 
> I decided not to rewrite this to reflect the intended chronology because it seemed like much too much work for such a minor point. (And, honestly, something about it being a full year later still feels hinky to me. But I guess there are just as many flaws--if not more of them--in my earlier perception of the chronology.)


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